One of the CEOs at Davos in January said something incredibly obvious, but equally incredible: the most important economic recovery plan right now for any country is to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.
There is a lot of ongoing merit to that statement, even though it's nine months old.
The truth remains that vaccines are the single most important weapon we've got right now. To combat the virus and to return to some form or semblance of normality, we need to get most people to vaccinate.
That may help to do away with these boom-bust lockdown periods that we've been experiencing over the past 18 Covid months.
SA's economic recovery aspiration undoubtedly has the vaccination programme at its front and centre. The vaccination question transcends both the micro and macro picture.
Whether or not to vaccinate is probably the most important decision employers and individuals are going to make this year, as companies are teetering on the edge of the voluntary vs mandatory jabs debate.
I suspect that societal behaviour is going to push us towards mandatory, in time, but we don't really have the luxury of time.
As some teeter on whether or not to vaccinate, a fourth wave is a strong likelihood. It is very difficult to predict with precision when it might be, maybe in two to three months' time. So, we don't have a lot of time.
Another certainty is that we cannot afford another hard lockdown in December or January. We simply cannot afford these lockdowns.
However, in the midst of a crisis there are a few silver linings out of the pandemic.
— one of the biggest learnings from this pandemic is that local capacities solve problems
For example, SA's scientific community has been stellar, among the best on the planet. It's not by pure luck or accident that three of the most prominent Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials were conducted in our country. They are AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, which all had a South African leg to the their overall clinical study. It is rare to find this happening in an emerging market and says a lot about our scientific and medical capabilities in SA. We need to build on that excellence.
We've all witnessed the uneven distribution of vaccines globally.
Some of the statistics are that over
6-billion doses of vaccines have been administered globally - shots in arms, yet Africa has only had 180-million jabs in arms so far. That is less than 2%.
One of the biggest learnings from this pandemic is that local capacities solve problems in pandemics, and outside of pandemics.
Johnson & Johnson partnering with Aspen has been another significant development. J&J's market cap is almost 1.5 times the size of SA's GDP. So, you're dealing with massive global players that exert significant global influence.
They've selected 11 contract manufacturers and of those, Aspen is the only one in Africa and southern hemisphere. As a result, Aspen is now the first to produce for and on behalf of J&J. We are producing the largest quantity of J&J is vaccines at this point in time. This reflects the strong technical capabilities we have in SA, which can be harnessed to solve not only local and continental, but also global problems.
These are the positive aspects that we need to build on both from a localisation perspective but also in terms of how we position SA, within this global morass that we're witnessing at the moment. There's some real excellence that we can pick out of the difficulties of the past 18 months to build a new narrative that will appeal to global and domestic investors.
Yes, there have been significant challenges, downsides and headwinds in the past 18 months, yet there have been silver linings. Being at the forefront of Covid science and having a South African company, Aspen Pharmacare, as Johnson & Johnson's lead Covid vaccine contract manufacturer, demonstrates the excellence that exists in our country, an excellence we can all, as South Africans, be immensely proud of and one that we can use for our ongoing positioning with the international investment community.
• This is an extract from an Aspen Pharmacare presentation by Nicolaou at the Sunday Times's recent National Investment Dialogue
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.